COUNTY - Unless there's plenty of help on the way, AbitibiBowater ownership seems bent on shutting down its Brooklyn, Queens County, mill, which has industry observers wondering what's in store for the company's Lunenburg County site near Oakhill.

 "Well, they're all interconnected," said Nova Scotia Premier Darrell Dexter on November 2, "and there would be no question that anything that happened to Bowater would affect very seriously not just the operation of the Oakhill mill but other mills as well."

 Premier Dexter spoke to southshorenow.ca and the Lunenburg County Progress Bulletin soon after a morning meeting in Queens County with community leaders. It was that morning that AbitibiBowater issued the ultimatum. They want a break or the mill closes permanently.

 AbitibiBowater's corporate communications vice-president, Seth Kursman, suggested it's no secret the mill is no longer a profitable facility nor competitive in the global marketplace.

 "We're saying you got to get competitive or, yes, the risk of that mill not having a future is very real," he told CBC News. The company had already announced a one-week shutdown would take place next week due to market conditions.

 A permanent closure impacts about 300 jobs (roughly half of those being unionized) in addition to an anticipated 1,600 to 2,000 more workers, such as contractors, who depend on the company's operations to make their living. A percentage of those employee numbers make their home in Lunenburg County.

 "They need to reduce their cost structure in almost every aspect," Premier Dexter told the Progress Bulletin, "and the message they delivered [November 2] is that they need to get manufacturing costs from $537 a tonne down to $480 and get labour costs from $97 a tonne down to $80 a tonne."

 The premier said AbitibiBowater anticipated making a final decision next month on what to do with the Queens County mill.

 AbitibiBowater president and chief executive officer Richard Garneau "told people [November 2] that the local mill was some $49 million in debt to its parent company on a pure cash basis and that they couldn't continue to essentially burn cash to support a mill that didn't appear to have a profitable future," the premier said.

 The news is doing little to boost confidence in Queens County where residents worry a permanent mill closure will turn Liverpool largely into a retirement town.

 "It's tough every time you go in when they talk about these cutbacks. It's like how much more can we take," mill worker Peter Young told CBC News.

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 "We've already taken a 22 per cent rollback and they still want more so how far can you go. It's not good to go to work if you're not making money."

 The mill "is a significant economic driver in the community, there's no question," Brady Home Building Centre's Stew Horton told the Chronicle Herald. "It's integral to Liverpool and the surrounding area."

 Courtney Wentzell, who represents unionized workers at the Brooklyn mill, hangs on to hope that the 80-plus-year-old facility can still make money but he explained to CBC News that the newsprint industry is in rough shape.

 Premier Dexter said Mr. Garneau told him back in August he wanted to close the mill then.

 "I told him that that was an unacceptable position for the company to take; that the mill had a lot of value in terms of land holdings and it had made money for many years for Bowater," Premier Dexter said of his own view. "And that we should be having a discussion about the future of the mill but that should be about a way forward."

 A government-assembled multi-departmental committee of analysts and industry experts convinced the company that there was money to be made if certain things happened.

 Premier Dexter didn't want to talk about any prospects of mill layoffs so AbitibiBowater could meet its labour cost goals.

 "One of the things that we want to try to avoid is to be presumptive of any of that," he said.

 Political leaders are on board with finding ways to help keep the mill from closing.

 "It's our responsibility as a collective to try and find a solution to this," Liberal leader Stephen McNeil told Global News.

 Tory leader Jamie Baillie said his party has already introduced legislation that can render assistance.

 "The fact of the matter is power is the largest cost by far for the Bowater mill," he explained to Global News.

 "We have some practical bills before the house ... that can go a long way to reducing the cost of power and ensuring that people pay their fair share and companies can survive and thrive."

 Premier Darrell Dexter isn't ruling out putting taxpayers' money into keeping the mill out of mothballs.

 "We're not going to take anything off the table to begin with. We need to see where we're at," he said. "We cannot do an ongoing subsidy to keep a mill open but there are other things that we can do that will reduce their costs. So that's what we're going to look at."

 He wants the public to know that government is working hard to find answers.

 "I just want people to be assured that we are going to do everything possible to try and make sure we get to a position where that mill can be sustainable."

 Name change for local AbitibiBowater site

 The logo at the AbitibiBowater mill near Oakhill will get modified to reflect the parent company's name change.

 As of November 7, AbitibiBowater sites will become Resolute Forest Products.

 "This new identity reflects the fundamental characteristics of the company as we see it today, including our determination, strength and resolve to be a profitable, sustainable organization," AbitibiBowater president and chief executive officer Richard Garneau said in a statement released by the company.

 "With a low-cost structure, a diversified revenue base and a strong balance sheet, we are well positioned to serve our customers for the long term."

 AbitibiBowater's local mill, which has the capacity to produce about 150 million board feet of lumber per year, is located off the Oakhill Road.

posted on 11/09/11